So i bought my upper control arms with adjustable ball joints from ingalls i think 3 years ago or so... right from the get go, i had the passenger side ball joint develop some slop in it, so that has to be replaced...

2 days ago i was doing my oil change and had the car in the air so i checked the suspension... to my surprise the drivers side was horrible. the ball joint has 3-4 mm of play in it... so i went to the passenger side and found it too had some slop in it... very little in comparison but... i bought 2 new ball joints with the bracket from ingalls and will be putting them on later today...

is this a common occurrence? i am getting kinda mad i even bothered purchasing them... the whole point of getting them was so the suspension would be reconfigured and thus this should not happen right?

 

Not that i'm of any help here but I had the exact same thing happen with mine...let me know what you find out. Both sides needing replacement. WTF

 

forgot to mention last night i replaced the really bad one on the drivers side... I had to grind off the 4 screws the sandwich the plate to the uca... then put a screw driver between the baljoint and the uca and pry lightly and it popped out....

the control arms were rusting on the top. so I wire brushed the rust down and slapped on some black body paint.. let it dry for 30 mins... then blow torched it to heat the paint up and make it bond a lil better.

put everything back together and all is fine.... on that side..

note. you will likely need to grind the bolt off.. when i installed the new one i put red threadlock on the threads which theoretically should allow them to be removed properly down the road when they too fail LOL..

 

Got the other ball joint without using the grinder so i was super happy about that.. Got it all back together and then started tugging on the suspension to find I have play in the inner tie rod area.. So I am about going to do that tomorrow. Lol this is getting funny

 

same problem here.
Had to go through the same process.
I had mine replaced 3 months ago from the last install about 3 - 4 yrs ago.

I believe the problem is the snows and heavy salts depending where u live.
gets them all dry and rusty ( being dropped/lowered also doesn't help)

 

to be honest both of the ball joints i took off were still lubed up fine. boots were nowhere near fatigued... i say they failed due to all the damn bumps, probably maxing out the ball joints.

as for the inner tie rod. unfortunately it was fine, and the clicking is inside the rack. OH well.... i cannot hear it when i drive nor does it created any movement in the suspension so that's the good news i guess.

im starting to get fet up with the old gal. I think this year I am starting a new-car fund... if i had not dropped 15k on my wood shop i would have had it this year :-(.... but i think that was more important than getting a better car

So in a couple years it is Focus ST time. then i get my turbo and 6 speed trans and insane heated recaro seats. and 4 doors it a definite bonus now that im getting to that age. I watched the top gear test drive where they compared it against two other similar cars. although it slightly lost in the drag, it pulled more lateral g's and it was fastest around the track by a second, proving its a very good handling car. which is what i want again. power u can add but handling is dependent on the vehicle

 

same issue here....

I am going to replace mine with the Skunk2 kit.

 

ST is a dope car . Had a friend with a 03 SVT FOCUS with the Recaro's , so nice .

 

I have decided I am going to put a rubber bushing under the strut mount area and this will stop the ballpoint from maxing out. That's how I am going to remedy this..